Annie the Superstar
by Skylar Maverick
Summary: Every one has their story... Annie stumbles into Jeff Hardy's life and tells him how she ended up where she is.


They called her Blondie.  
  
Whenever the Federation visited Texas, she'd be there, silently waiting. Sometimes you'd catch her at shows in Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. From a quick judgement at a first glance she could be instantly categorized. Some choose to call them groupies, others roadies. To make it perfectly blunt and clear, she was a star- f*cker.  
  
In the Federation, we referred to her type as ring rats.  
  
There were dozens of new ring rats in every town, but there was only one Blondie. She had gorgeous features, long, lush blonde hair, cool blue eyes and a slim build. But there was something in her brooding expressions and the way she held herself made it obvious she had been damaged in the past. If eyes were truly the windows to the soul, some one had cast a stone and shattered hers long ago.  
  
I had noticed her routine, casually waiting by the back door for no one in particular. But every night there was always a taker. I was more than appalled that more often than not I found her early in the morning, creeping from a married man's room. But this was her way of life, and there was something about her eyes.  
  
One night after a show in Baton Rouge I had worked up the bravado to approach her. She was standing under a street lamp in the back alleyway, smoking a joint and pulling her coat around her tightly as she shivered in her leather miniskirt. "Blondie!" I called out. She looked up as my voice echoed off the walls and she stared right at me before looking right back down as if I wasn't there. "Hey, Blondie?" I asked again.  
  
"Are you calling me?" She asked in disbelief, taking one last drag before crushing the joint with the toe of her knee high boots.  
  
"Do you see another blonde around?" I joked and she gave a small smile.  
  
"Well young man, I take it you know me," She laughed, "but you better be telling me what you want, cause talk is cheap and time's very valuable."  
  
"Are you waiting for anyone in particular tonight?" I asked, finding myself very nervous.  
  
"Well, Bradshaw did call me up, but if he doesn't hurry the hell up I'll climb back in my Chevy and drive home." She smiled a little, her eyes brightening a little.  
  
"Wanna go out for coffee?" I asked, feeling my cheeks flush a little. "You know, just to make friends?"  
  
"Are you sure you understand just who I am?" She laughed. "I'm a ring rat Jeffrey. I'm not the friendly coffee type."  
  
"And is that just because no one was ever decent enough to treat you like a human being?" She stared back at me blankly. She closed her eyes and I was worried I had struck a nerve.  
  
"Black, no sugar." She smirked. "But since you're buying, I wouldn't mind a beer or two before that."  
  
"No problem." She linked her arm with mine as we walked down the dismal street to find a decent bar.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
"So what makes you tick Blondie?" I asked as she took a sip of her fourth beer. "Why do you do the things you do?" We were both fairly inebriated.  
  
"What, do you mean why am I a ring rat?" She asked, a slight slur in her speech. "It's just my way, you know?"  
  
"Your way of what?" I asked. She shrugged and flagged down the waiter for another Bud Light.  
  
"I love wrestling. I know everything there is to know about the sports entertainment business. I know facts, stats and history out the ying yang. Ever since I was little and watching WWF and WCW shows on TV, it's all I ever wanted. But you know, shit happens. I got screwed out of the good life along the way. Now here I am, Blondie the Ring Rat instead of being Annie, the Superstar." She sighed and began to furtively crumple up her napkin.  
  
"What happened to you? What steered you off track?" I asked, amazed by the complexity of this seemingly one-dimensional woman.  
  
"My parents used to beat me six ways from Sunday." Her bluntness frightened me. I placed down my beer and listened, growing terribly saddened. "My father was a drunk and my mother was a crack whore." She paused. "And you always say you aren't gonna end up like your parents, but in reality you can't escape it. You become your parents. Their faults become your faults and it's a god damn vicious cycle!" She stopped and took a few ragged breaths. "Wrestling is my outlet. For a few hours every week I could sit down and watch, and with that escape all my problems. It became like a drug in itself. I became addicted to the calming effect it had over me and I became obsessed."  
  
"But nobody wants a lanky, blonde crack addict in their wrestling school. I was turned away from them all. So I was desperate to find my way into wrestling, any way, any how. Oh, and I found my place all right. Now I'm Blondie, the lanky, blonde, crack whore. I swear to god I can't win." She set her head down on the bar counter. Her shoulders rose and fell as she began to cry. I didn't know what I was to do.  
  
She raised her head and chuckled. "So I just drink and smoke some more, and everything is all right again. See? And that, Jeff Hardy, is what makes me tick." She sighed and powered down the last of her beer.  
  
"I can't imagine what it must be like to be you." I looked at her sad eyes and a lump formed in my stomach.  
  
"You wanna know what it's like to be me? It's like…" she trailed off. "Well it's like…hell I forget." She got off of her bar stool and put on her coat. "Excuse me Jeff, I must go find Bradshaw before he blows a nut. Plus there are more hotel matchbooks to collect, many more tears to cry and more joints to smoke. But I'll leave you with one more insight to my world. I keep sane by believing there's a place in heaven for the miserable like me. I bid you adieu." And with that she walked out of my life, never to be seen in the rank back alleys of arenas again.  
  
And she never made it to see Bradshaw.  
  
She was found dead of a heroin overdose, wrapped warmly in her Chevrolet, parked in a cheap motel's lot. There were dried tears and a smile on her face. Robert Plant was on repeat on her car stereo.  
  
Annie the Superstar, who believed that all that glitters is gold had used up her last dime and bought her stairway to heaven. 


End file.
